As is known, the casks for performing the soaking or germination operations in malthouses, generally adopt a cylindrical configuration, with vertical axis, provided with a false perforated bottom, on which the grain is placed, specifically, barley, in the hollow of which, a series of turning elements act, as for example, lead screws, establishing between said false grated bottom and the real bottom of the cask, a lower chamber in which, on the one hand, the supporting structure of the grating modules are located, whilst, on the other hand it acts as chamber through which, on occasions water, and on other occasions air, etc, is provided to the mass of the product.
Though the false grated bottom does not permit the grains to penetrate to the lower chamber, residues of organic material undoubtedly penetrate, which in a propitious environment existing in said chamber, facilitate the proliferation of bacteria and micro-organisms which are capable of being dragged towards the mass of the product and which are substantially detrimental to the latter, transmitting bad smells, among other possible problems.
This supposes, that said lower chamber of the soaking and germination casks must be periodically subjected to an appropriate cleaning to prevent the described problem.
Up to now, the cleaning operations were conducted manually, lifting the grating which constitutes the false bottom of the cask and acting directly on the real bottom and on all the interior supporting structure of the grating, which involves a complex and hard task, especially considering the large dimensions of said casks which might well have diameters over 15 meters and in which the gratings are intended to support very important loads, due to which they must be structurally robust and consequently heavy.
Additionally, the structure supporting said gratings is permanently subjected to an environment which is detrimental to the metallic materials from which the same are obtained, creating maintenance problems and shortening their service life.